Confrontation brewing on proposals to curb beer, panhandling Downtown

Charles Jackson, with the Center City Commission's Blue Suede Brigade, gives directions to Suzanne Bailey and her husband, from Flagstaff, Ariz., on Main Street Mall Thursday. Jackson works full time helping tourists and being a deterrent to panhandlers that frequent the mall area.

Downtown boosters are girding for a political fight over proposals aimed at ridding a large part of the central business district of alcohol-related misbehavior and aggressive panhandling.

After months of study by the Center City Commission, proposed curbs on single beer sales and panhandling are scheduled to go to the City Council in coming weeks, officials said Thursday.

The beer measure would ban sales of single beers in much of Downtown, based on other cities' experience that removing cheap, easy sources of alcohol reduces antisocial activities ranging from begging to public drunkenness.

Panhandling rule changes, likewise stemming from studies of what worked in other cities, would ban panhandling except for designated locations.

The Center City Commission is marshaling support from constituents ranging from restaurants and tourist-dependent businesses to the Downtown Neighborhood Association.

Neighborhood association board members voted overwhelmingly to support the measures, as justified by Center City, DNA president Terry Woodard said. "Bottom line is, we need to do something."

"It's just heating up, as far as the ordinances go and the opposition to them," said Center City's security chief, Larry Bloom.

The ordinances are scheduled for review by the council's public safety and homeland security committee Feb. 23. That would put them on track to be considered for final approval by March 30, said Center City vice president of operations Jerome Rubin.

"In the end, it's going to be nothing more than a political campaign," said Rubin, a former councilman. He said the beer industry lobby is expected to make a strong push to keep single beer sales legal.

Rich Foge, spokesman for the association, said, "We just can't agree with the approach of banning our product in the stores. It's a small group of people causing the problems. There's plenty of (law-abiding) people who like to buy one beer."

Foge said the association plans to propose a voluntary public-private coalition to fight aggressive panhandling.